How to find a biological dad?

[Beachybeach]

My partner has decided to try to find his biological dad/family/siblings - he’s more fussed about the latter.

However the BD isn’t english, from the continent and we’re not even sure how much English he speaks. My DP mum doesn’t like talking about him and had only gave my DP a name, photo and a rough ‘his family was from ‘x’ area and we met at ‘Y’’.

We’ve googled his name and it seems to be a John smith with thousands of pages. Getting info out of DP mum seems to be getting blood out of a stone as she obviously doesn’t want to help (it seems to be a holiday romance).

We’ve thought about doing an ancestry test but is that even popular outside of English speaking countries. We’re at a loss and DP does really want to find his other side.

Start off with doing Ancestry and 23 as they are low-hanging fruit and people from all over do use them. You can upload the results to GEDmatch as well.

You could contact local FB groups /newspapers with a brief story and photos - not just the ones you were given but a few of your partner at various ages. Someone may sit up and go, "that's the spit of Uncle Ivan!"

The film Lion shows what persistence can get you.

Equally I have 2 friends who have yet to track down their British bio-dads so you're right that there is no magic bullet, but you have name, location and photo which is not nothing.

Is your DPs father even aware of his existence?

I really think its going to be very difficult to trace him with such minimal information and if it was a holiday romance then there's also the possibility that this man didn't even give her his true details.

I do understand the longing to know more. I was the result of an affair and was adopted. I did meet my birth mother, but the only information i have about my father (who was at the birth and does know about me) is his name (as common as John Smith), rough age, and rough location (London).. I also know from my mother he was/is married with 3 daughters.. So much as i really would have liked to find out more, I doubt I could without possibly causing a lot of heartache to other people too. As well as the possibility of rejection to me.

Try looking on FB to see if there are any pages for expat communities in whatever country/area it is. I'm in Germany and on a couple of sites, and people come on occasionally with old photos and names - expats are often keen to help.

The Ancestry DNA thing isn't especially popular in Germany.